Necromancer Poem by Sophia White

Fierce and full of fire comes my poem now to me
Arisen from a pit where breeds all foul and fitful thing,
Enwreathed in smoke and bitter steam from some unearthly tarn
Which boils in the bowels of the earth, where imps are born.
Is not this thing an imp itself, a demon from the deep?
A hellion wailing with black lungs that never still in sleep?
At my feet, about my head, it coils serpentine
Searching me for vagrant wisps of Soul to grimly glean.
It ever hungers, ever thirsts, and watches vigilant
For a moment when my mind should fail be diligent.
Then would it swoop, harpy-like, into my naked soul
And doom my essence eternally into hell’s fiery hole.
A poet’s necromancy work is ill begotten strife
Which sets him like a spinning top upon a narrow knife.
He plays with fires that no man should ever dare to tame
And thinks his play is but some superficial game.
Oh, beware, for poetry is no superficial thing,
But illuminates its summoner’s own internal fiend
And laughs when at last the fool, realizing then his plight,
Finds himself trapped in a ring of hell’s most hellish light.